Posted
by
samzenpus
on Thursday November 15, 2012 @04:09AM
from the shine-on-you-crazy-beetle dept.

terrancem writes "A newly discovered light-producing cockroach, Lucihormetica luckae, may have already been driven to extinction by a volcanic eruption in Ecuador. The species, only formally described by scientists this year, hasn't been spotted since the Tungurahua Volcano erupted in July 2010. The new species was notable because it represented the only known case of mimicry by bioluminescence in a land animal. Like a venomless king snake beating its tail to copy the unmistakable warning of a rattlesnake, Lucihormetica luckae's bioluminescent patterns are nearly identical to the poisonous click beetle, with which it shares (or shared) its habitat."

Ernest's first dog was "Shorty" and his second dog was "Rimshot".
I think you have in mind the old missing dog flyer:
Missing: One-eyed, three legged dog. No tail, recently castrated, answers to the name "Lucky".

No! I really do mean roaches. Besides Pigs, I probably hate roaches more than any other living thing. My parents didn't keep a clean house and I had to grow up with them.EVERYWHERE! In the food, in my bed, in my clothing. Every 3 months like clockwork I use a bulb syringe to distribute boric acid based roachicide to every crack and crevice of the house. Every 2 weeks I run the water HOT down the drain then pour half a gallon of Bleach down the drain. I haven't seen a roach in decades where I live.

OMG. A species driven to extinction!?We must remove man from this planet. Wait.It was not man that caused the extinction?Next you are going to tell me that man is only responsible for a tiny fraction of the bad shit that goes down.

You have slain your strawman with skill. But if you want to look like you're actually a reasonable person instead of a paranoid partisan prone to hyperbole, you should actually wait for someone to make an absurd argument before you refute it.

Yes, there are fireflies that mimic other fireflies in order to eat them: http://bioweb.uwlax.edu/bio203/2011/smith_ash2/nutrition.htm [uwlax.edu]
And yes, I would consider fireflies land animals, because they spend most of their lives on the ground as larvae: http://www.bio.davidson.edu/people/midorcas/animalphysiology/websites/2006/cahermes/larvae.htm

First, yes, there are fireflies that mimic other fireflies. But the mimicry is not among sub-species, as stated by the parent. Rather, females from one genus mimic males of another. Also, fireflies are considered terrestrial animals, even though they can fly. So, this is a clearly a case of bioluminescent mimicry, and the article summary was wrong to state that the cockroach was the "only known case of mimicry by bioluminescence in a land animal.

It's just Mother Nature trying to keep the world in balance. Cockroaches already scare many people as it is. A bioluminescent cockroach would be a little bit too much, I guess. The only worse thing would be a giant carnivorous bioluminescent centipede. If that ever appears in nature, I predict an asteroid strike will wipe it out.

Interesting fact: it isn't just the light that makes them scurry away adn hide. They can smell us, and find us quite disgusting (presumably an evolved survival reaction: avoid mammals as they'll either eat you or just stomp on you).

Why would a creature evolve to copy the rattlesnake's warning if nothing could mistake it for the real thing.

Because things do mistake it for the real thing? In terms of energy(and evolution is nothing if not the battle for energy, and of course, becoming energy) poison production is pretty expensive. Thats why a rattlesnake prefers to rattle, and will only bite either to kill prey or when it thinks it has no other way of defending itself, thus it evolved the rattle in addition to it's venom. Shaking

Further, I think in the case of snakes, it's not really mimicry. Many many species of snakes shake their tails when annoyed. Rattlesnakes are a genus that evolved an especially novel modification to an established behavior.

Parent was referring to the summary's use of the word "unmistakable". Also, the noise that the king snake makes in dry leaves is almost identical to the sound of the rattlesnake. If it doesn't have dry leaves it's just tail shaking, but in the leaves where it normally lives it's quite efficient mimicry.

see there was an obvious use for this species we're not going to get now.

We could have imported this roach and turned it lose in the US. I know what you're thinking, last thing we need is ANOTHER type of roach in the US. Well, should these things inter-breed with native roaches and spread their glowing genes they would more easily be detected in the dark making their light the glowing beacon that attracts their own demise.

I foresee a day when we will have roach hunting nano bots fueled by the very roaches they kill. Bioluminescence would have been just one more factor these bots, birds, bats, and the occasional shoe could have used to help hunt these creatures once their gene pool was poisoned by a virtual laser painting.

I foresee a day when we will have roach hunting nano bots fueled by the very roaches they kill

Agreed. The same concept could be applied to removing zebra mussels and other foreign species in the water. Or maybe the robot feeds off of animals but performs some other function, like removing toxic chemicals. Yet another robot could be sent into landfill sites to find useful metals, etc.. while feeding off of organic waste or combustibles.

Lived in Florida for a time, where they have six inch long cockroaches that fly. They were horrible, until I got a ferret. Apparently ferrets think that roaches are great toys, and when the toy breaks they're great snacks. Now whether the ferret is less of a nuisance than the roaches is another question entirely . . .

It was just another of their bioluminescent mimcry tricks. They swarmed to create the illusion of a volcano to scare away the humans so they could pull away undetected and hide in obscurity, increasing their numbers until the time comes for them to attack.

One more reason to move ahead with global warming and destroy this planet before it gets the better of us.

This is not the only known case of mimicry by bioluminescence of a land animal, unless fireflies don't count (being that all of the insects in question can fly, they'd better count!). Pennsylvania's state insect is a tricky one, indeed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photuris_pennsylvanica [wikipedia.org]

It will duplicate the mating blinks of other species of firefly, and consume the attracted "suitors"!

Tungurahua is beautiful but not stable, the bioluminescent cockroach must have survived more eruptions than anyone can count. I bet it will survive the blast of this size too. I also bet that there are subspecies that live in a different hight, becasue Ecuador is famous for insane diversity of species. Birds can have 40 different colors in the same spot in Ecuador. Cockroaches are far more common than birds. By math alone, the cockroach must have survived.

...everyone knows that the extermination of a species is only caused by human generated global warming – typically from the activities of people residing on the North American continent. So the story is obviously false.